When did regular old pocket knives become “traditional”?

J

Just Tom.

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Apr 24, 2019
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I have a question, but I am not brave enough to venture off the Porch to ask it.

When did “modern” knives take over the market? Until I started browsing Blade Forums a few years ago I was completely unaware of their existence.

Growing up in the US in the 70’s and 80’s I never saw or owned anything other than what today would be considered “traditional” pocket knives. I acquired a few additional knives in the late 80’s and early 90’s (not in America though), and don’t recall seeing anything like a “modern” knife at that time. From the early 90’s until just maybe 5 years ago, the knives I already had continued to serve me well, and I never went looking for more (I stopped needing a knife for work in the early 2000’s). I suppose if I saw a modern knife I must have just assumed it was some sort of utility knife and ignored it.

Was I living under a rock? Did I miss the memo? Was the disappearance of the traditional knife somehow linked the the demise of the independent hardware store (where one would have typically purchased a pocket knife)?
 
Although still traditional, I think the Buck 110 started the trend toward moderns: a strong, overbuilt large lockback. The only thing it lacked was the thumb stud to make it a modern. I think they first appeared in the 1960s. By the '70s, every manufacturer in America was making something similar. Just going by my ever-more-feeble memory, I think thumb studs came in the late 1980s or early '90s.
 
Tom, apparently memo's don't get delivered unless the rock has a mailbox on it. :D

Yes, I think the death of the small independent hardware stores has a bit to do with it, but there were other factors at work. Over the course of a few decades after the second world war, there was a huge change in American society. All those young GI's home from saving the world with their new skills in electronic and mechanical and clerical and other jobs, just didn't feel like going home and helping daddy plow the lower '40.

They'd seen the world and didn't feel like living in Mayberry anymore when they could get a job in the big city where the bright lights were, being paid far more than dad was going to give them for riding that John Deer around. The birth of a new phenomenon, the suburbs, was a huge factor. The availability of cars, GI loans on the new tract homes built on lots in new sub divisions was another. More people on the move found themselves in another new phenomenon; the office cubicle. More formal dress in those office environments and no real need of a knife capable of cutting fouled stuff out of the combine, or other such rural needs, caused a massive change in buying habits.

One by one, the knife companies that helped win WW2, went under because few people were replacing pocketknives worn out in rural life styles. The suit was the replacement for coveralls or other work wear. Theres little room in dress pants worn to the office for a full size stockman or trapper. By the 1960's, 20 years after the war, a lot of the knife companies that has supplied GI's, Marines, fliers, and sailors, were our of business. The other giants like Camillus and Schrade, were struggling. By the 1980's they were facing a dark future.

In the 1980's they came up with a new slant on the personal knife; they created the knife as an emergency weapon. The birth of the "tactical Knife" was born. The cutlery companies had to create a new market to artificially stimulate sales to a new generation of young men with high disposable income. As the old companies like Pal, Hammer Brand, Utica, and a host of others died, new companies like Cold Steel, Spyderco, Benchmade, came into being. They paid for Product placement in Hollywood movies, and paid for over the top advertising in the new industry shills, the knife magazines, showing a knife able to punch through a car door and such. Not that I've ever been attacked by a Chevy, or a Ford, but I guess those Dodge's can be sketchy.

In spite of what was called the Greatest Generation surviving the Great Depression, and then fighting a world war with a small one or two blade jackknife or penknife in the pocket, the new generation was convinced that without a large locking blade knife cable of killing a rabid Dodge, they were walking dead.

It was and still is all about the money. They have to keep the sales going with a new trick like a new steel of the month, or a new locking mechanism that can support a Brinks Armored car, or other such nonsense. Its all about the artificially driven market of constant sales. Theres no money in selling a little 2 blade jack to some guy and he carries that knife for the next 15 years to cut whatever he needs to cut in the new office work environment and weekends in suburbia doing some burgers on the grill after the kids soccer practice. You gotta keep him coming back for the latest and greatest.

Its all about the marketing, Tom. And the money.
 
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I remember going to the mall in the 70s & 80s and I always would visit the knife shop while my mom shopped. I would steam up the glass like a kid in a toy store perusing the knives I couldn’t afford. I remember buying a gerber lst in high school with an orange handle as a major departure from slipjoint knives, and there in the display case were some stainless knives with a hole in the blade...next thing I know they proliferate like bunnies. Even the mechanics at the shop I worked at were abandoning their kershaw folders from the snap on man for a one handed knife. Heavy chunks of steel. I tried to like one - to fit it I suppose - but it wasn’t for me. So around the 80s I’d say...at least for me. Lost the damn gerber. I liked the orange handle :)
 
They've always been traditional, I think. They were simply given that name lately, to differentiate them from the single blade lockbacks that have become more frequently seen. If you were looking to buy a "pocket knife" you would likely be shown the lockbacks with pocket clips.... to avoid that, we ask to see "traditional" pocketknives.
 
black mamba said:
Although still traditional, I think the Buck 110 started the trend toward moderns
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Buck 110’s were very common here growing up - particularly on the belts of the kids from the working families who used to inhabit the neighborhood I now live in. I suppose I can imagine the same demographic now going for modern knives, though you couldn’t carry one to school anymore.

jackknife said:
Tom, apparently memo's don't get delivered unless the rock has a mailbox on it. :D
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Thank you for that detailed write-up. It certainly makes sense to me when put that way, although pocket knife carry still seemed pretty common in the solidly suburban environment of my upbringing. Maybe it was a dying custom then and because of the people I associated with I just didn’t notice.

huntnfishin said:
I remember going to the mall in the 70s & 80s and I always would visit the knife shop
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I didn’t spend enough time in shopping malls, I guess, or the ones I went to didn’t have knife shops. My source for knives was always the couple of hardware stores or one particular hunting/fishing/gun store near my home.

Thanks all for answering my question - I will go back under my rock now. Don’t send me any memos, I will just ignore them.
 
hornetguy said:
They've always been traditional, I think. They were simply given that name lately, to differentiate them from the single blade lockbacks that have become more frequently seen. If you were looking to buy a "pocket knife" you would likely be shown the lockbacks with pocket clips.... to avoid that, we ask to see "traditional" pocketknives.
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I guess that was my question though. When did thumb studs, pocket clips, frame locks and all that stuff become so much the norm that in order to find what I would consider an ordinary pocket knife i would have to specify “traditional” pocket knife.
Since my daughters didn’t take much of an interest in camping or fishing, I didn’t go in outdoor supply stores much when they were young, which I suppose contributed to me being hopelessly out of the loop.
 
I’ve wasted a lot of money on “modern” knives without much success. For years as a cop I carried an AFCK in my slapped pockets because it was easy to get at considering all the required crap we had to carry. But if not in uniform and since retirement I carry a Stockman and/or a Farmer. I still own the AFCK but it hasn’t been used in close to 20 years
 
Not sure when it happened, but the modern came about because people saw a friend who had something which was like a switchblade but was still legal.

They saw a friend or acquaintance pull out a knife out and open it one handed. Then they had to ask to play with it and get one (maybe).

I'm not saying that is a horrible, terrible thing. One hand opening can be quite useful at times and cool factor is cool factor.
Switchblades should never have been banned. They are readily available and the world has not ended.

Of course I much prefer my traditionals. Don't get me wrong.
 
davek14 said:
Not sure when it happened, but the modern came about because people saw a friend who had something which was like a switchblade but was still legal.

They saw a friend or acquaintance pull out a knife out and open it one handed. Then they had to ask to play with it and get one (maybe).

I'm not saying that is a horrible, terrible thing. One hand opening can be quite useful at times and cool factor is cool factor.
Switchblades should never have been banned. They are readily available and the world has not ended.

Of course I much prefer my traditionals. Don't get me wrong.
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I can definitely see where a stout knife with easy access and one-handed open and close would be handy - like up a ladder or in a tight crawlspace. Such a knife would probably stay with my tools when not at work, though, the way my Case lock-back did.

Also, I don’t actually carry a small multi-blade slipjoint much anymore. I usually carry an Okapi ratchet knife, which while still very traditional, was very strange to me when I first encountered them around 1990 or so.
 
jackknife said:
As the old companies like Pal, Hammer Brand, Utica, and a host of others died,
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I just have to point out that Utica was still with us, last I looked, and still making some knives on Noyes Street, though they seem to have retired the Kutmaster brand, and their traditionals were down to single blade and two-blade trappers.

I agree with above that the Buck lockback craze started the drive to make folders as strong as fixed blades, which were driving to be as strong as prybars. Another great selling point of the Buck 110 was the ease of getting in and out of a truck with it. Make it easy to open one-handed, and who needs a FB? And if the big folder is that easy to carry, why not carry it all the time?

Also, of course, still agreeing with above, the Rambo fantasists are looking for weapons rather than tools.

Though in fairness, there are some pocket-clipped assisted openers that are ground for cutting, and easy access and one-hand deployment are nice to have when you already have one hand full.

[Yup, still there: uticausa.com]
 
The newer generations had to "do it better" than their dads and grandpas did it. You couldn't carry a barlow or a trapper, that was an old man's knife. You can see the evolution if you look at Schrade's product offerings around the late 70's/early 80's to their demise in 2004. They still offered the Old Timers, but were going toward knives with all stainless blades, and fully molded and machined handles. Blades got sleek and "not-so-practical" grinds. It was more about form over function.

Fixed blade knives weren't like what you remember carrying when going hunting or camping. Now they had crazy saw teeth, venting, and spikes. Stallone and Arnold movies told us what was cool.

I would say it was around the 80's, when a younger generation decided to shed old-time values and do everything newer, slicker, faster.
 
I remember seeing my first spyderco in 1994 while in trade school. One of the “spoiled kids” got one. Serrated edge and all. “You know, if you riding a bull and your hand gets caught in the rope, you can get this knife out and it opens with one hand and it cuts rope so easy”. Made sense to my 18 year old self. Now, I think “what the hell, you ain’t never getting on a bull”. That said, I do like the convenience at times, just a bit more realistic. I do carry a small OTF auto (it’s orange to make it less tacticooly!) while working on the shop. I’ve had my nice traditionals fall out my work pants pockets. That always sucks. It’s nice to pull that one out and cut something I’m holding, retract and put back up with one hand. I like the shirogorovs. Very elegant and well built. So I carry one sometimes. But always with a much more used traditional. There have been very few occasions in my life where a one hand knife was nearly a necessity. One that stands out is a lady fell in a parking lot one day. I was holding a bandage on her hand and needed to cut some tape. It was just me and her and she wasn’t much help. I was glad for the shiro that day. Could I have made do? Absolutely. But, I like knives so carrying two isn’t an issue. Lol

I’m still waiting to need that knife to cut myself loose from being stuck in the rope on a bull.....
 
It was my High School Rodeo coach that first introduced me to modern one hand opening knives. "Gonna need to get to your knife fast", he used to say. He was right of course, the clipped knives were easily accessible and fast to deploy when emergencies arose, as they often did in the rodeo arenas. Soon, Wranglers and Spyderco Knives were the norm at arenas everywhere. And SVTFreak SVTFreak , if you're trapped on a bull, you aint reaching for your knife unless you're Superman, you just hope the clown is carrying one. ;)
 
I'm thinking they probably started to really take over in the early 90's.

The importers of cheap junkers are always pretty quick to copy the latest knife trends, they were mostly coming from Japan in the 80's then Taiwan and China more and more throughout the 90's.
I have not seen too much in the way of cheap modern folders with pocket clips and such from Frost cutlery or valor...ect that were made in Japan, this suggests to me that the modern folders weren't as hot of a ticket till probably the early 90's.


All I really know for sure is that they were about all I could get as a kid in the 2000's, eventually I started to realize I had never truly understood modern folder so I switched 100% to traditional folders and never looked back.

More power to those who can love and enjoy both, I have just found they are too vastly different to coexist in my life.
 
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It's my opinion that modern knives took over when the advantages they offer* became more desirable to the overall populace of knife buyers than slipjoints like your Grandfather would have carried. Pocket clips, locks in patterns that are more accessible than backlocks, different materials, new more durable blade steels, etc. All of those are seen as advantages and advancements in a pocket knife.

Also, it should be noted that I am not saying one way is better than the other. I have many high end custom modern knives, and also have many, many slipjoints. It's entirely fine to enjoy the things that are attractive about both.

* Both objectively and subjectively
 
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